A St. Paul, Minnesota family claims in a lawsuit that police
officers who conducted a wrong-door raid on their home shot their
dog, and then forced their three handcuffed children to sit near
the dead pet while officers ransacked the home. The lawsuit, which
names Ramsey County, the Dakota County Drug Task
Force, and the DEA, and asks for $30 million in civil rights
violations and punitive damages after a wrong-door raid, also
claims that the officers kicked the children and deprived one of
them of her diabetes medication.

The suit also alleges that one of the lead officers with the
task force "provided false information" in order to get a warrant
to raid the Franco family's home. (That information being the
Franco family's address, and not that of their supposedly criminal
neighbor Rafael Ybarra.)

But on the night of July 13, 2010, the task force broke down the
Francos' doors, "negligently raided the home of plaintiffs, by
raiding the wrong home and physically brutalizing all the
above-named occupants of said house," the complaint states.

Even after learning that they were in the wrong house, the
complaint states, the drug busters stayed in the Francos' home and
kept searching it.

They "handcuffed all of the inhabitants of the plaintiffs' home
except plaintiff Analese Franco who was forced, virtually naked,
from her bed onto the floor at gunpoint by officers of the St. Paul
Police Department SWAT team and officers of the St. Paul Police
Department."

"Each plaintiff was forced to the floor at gun and rifle point
and handcuffed behind their backs.

"Defendants shot and killed the family dog and forced the
handcuffed children to sit next to the carcass of their dead pet
and bloody pet for more than an hour while defendants continued to
search the plaintiffs' home."

One child "was kicked in the side, handcuffed and searched at
gunpoint," the family says.

Another child, a girl, "a diabetic, was handcuffed at gunpoint
and prevented by officer from obtaining and taking her medication,
thus induced a diabetic episode as a result of low-blood sugar
levels."

Shawn Scovill of the taskforce may have raided the wrong house,
but he didn't want to let the opportunity to rifle through
someone's things go to waste. So he and his team ransacked the
Franco house for over an hour, and managed to find a .22 caliber
pistol in the "basement bedroom of Gilbert Castillo," which the
suit says they attributed to the head of the Franco household,
Roberto Franco. According to the suit, Franco was convicted of
unlawful possession of a firearm, and remains behind bars. (If
anyone can weigh in on the legal loophole that might allow evidence
seized during a wrong-door raid to be used in court, please fill me
in. Also, are Minnesota gun laws that strict?)

Since the DEA is named in the suit, the Francos' legal team will
likely find itself going head-to-head with Obama administration
lawyers, who
argued a similar case earlier this year before the Ninth
Circuit. Short recap of the proceedings: The DOJ sought a summary
dismissal of a lawsuit filed against seven DEA agents for their
rough treatment of a family of four--mother, father, two very young
daughters--during a wrong-door raid conducted during the Bush
administration. The Ninth Circuit, denied
the DOJ's request for a summary dismissal, and drew a bright
line between how adults are treated during raids, and how children
are treated during raids.

So there's reason to hope that any request of a summary
dismissal of the Francos' case (by local law or federal attorneys)
won't fly based simply on allegations that the children were
cuffed, kicked, deprived of medicine, and made to sit near their
dead pet for an hour. But I don't think suing over the wrong-door
aspect will get the Franco family very far, unless they can prove
the mistake on the warrant was intentional and that the officers
were aware of the address error before the raid was
conducted.

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Sadly, this is standard procedure with police. Their "job" since
they do not believe in "Protect and Serve" anymore is to contain
the area. This means causing fear, showing they are in control, and
locking up any loose targets. They tell us it is for the safety of
the officers and those involved; however, what it really is about
is control and psychological warfare. 98% of the time, they do not
even need weapons; however, they come loaded to the teeth with
heavy armaments to induce shock and awe and to a lesser degree,
suggest fighting is pointless. "Resistance if Futile" is the way
they are coming across and if we allow what is happening in Chicago
happen elsewhere, we will experience real terror and who will be
responsible, the government that restricted our freedoms and forced
us into submission. We must challenge authority; however, in
non-violent means due to the simple fact, we are outgunned.

If that moat is more than 18 inches deep you had better have a
five foot fence surrounding it along with an alarm on open for the
drawbridge. You know, for the children.

Oh wait, that moat will naturally have to occur in the front
yard. No sorry, that will be an attractive nuisance and not
permitted. Plus, you are only allowed a fence 3'-6" in height in
the front. So, you wouldn't be able to properly enclose it
anyway.

But I don't think suing over the wrong-door aspect will get
the Franco family very far, unless they can prove the mistake on
the warrant was intentional and that the officers were aware of the
address error before the raid was conducted.

Burglary only applies to us common citizens. We can't use the
ignorance defense like LEOs can.

The gun case will be thrown out. The only way you could get the
gun admitted would be if it was in plain view. Hard to believe that
a gun in the basement bedroom was in "plain view". The fact that he
is still in jail and the US attorney hasn't dismissed the charges
says all you need to know about the US Attorney. Anyone who has
taken first year criminal procedure knows that gun is inadmissible.
But the feds don't give a shit. They will keep him in jail for a
few months, ruin his life and then dismiss the case and tell the
world how lucky this guy is and how benevolent they are.

Pretty much the entire DOJ needs to be fired, every US attorney
and every assistant. There are some good ones. But there are so
many bad ones that the culture is irredeemably corrupt. The only
way to fix it is to fire everyone and start over from scratch.

Good question. It is not clear. The only thing I can figure is
that Franco was on probation and he got convicted of the probation
or parole violation. Parolees really have no rights with regard to
search and seizure. That would have prevented him from objecting to
the admission of the gun. But absent that, I don't see how he could
have been convicted.

was the gun his? It was in the bedroom of another individual.
Was that individual barred from owning a gun? I know of a guy who
is a convicted felon with a gun in his house because his wife owns
the gun. She still has the right to keep and bear arms even if his
own was taken away. So just because a gun is in the house of a
parolee should not mean he is in violation.

I'm not familiar with the details of this case or with St.
Paul/Minnesota law, but I do know that some places, particularly
Blue states with restrictive gun laws, have "presumptive
possession" - if a gun is found in a place that someone has access
to, they can be legally presumed to be in possession of it, whether
it was actually theirs or not. Something like that might apply
here.

FTA:In summary, the complaint states:..."Defendant, Shawn Scovill
intentionally perjured himself in his sworn testimony on the
witness stand at the suppression hearing and at the trial of
plaintiff, Roberto Franco.
"Defendant, Shawn Scovill intentionally misrepresented the facts of
the criminal case against Roberto Franco in all documents following
the arrest of, plaintiff Roberto Franco.
"Defendant Shawn Scovill intentionally misrepresented the facts in
the State's criminal against plaintiff Gilbert Castillo when he
said that Gilbert Castillo did not state that the confiscated
weapon belonged to Gilbert Castillo.

Yes, and all that happens is the judge asks the prosecution to
go over the facts, then the judge asks the defendant if he's guilty
and knows what he's pleading to etc. It's pretty rare for the judge
to go into anymore depth than that.

We could conscript various high reputation private counsel -
impress them for a term of 2-5 years as US Attorney, then let them
work motion practice and appellate stuff from a halfway house fo 6
months, then let them go?

I like that idea. Why do we have to have a permanent
professional set of prosecutors? If we can draft soldiers, why
can't we draft lawyers. The job market for lawyers is so bad that I
bet most people who were drafted would be happy to get a steady pay
check. People are lining up for DOJ jobs.

I'm an underemployed lawyer. If it meant that I could prosecute
some worthless bankster crooks, I'd work for the DoJ for free. The
joy of seeing corrupt assholes squirm on the witness stand would be
payment enough.

It would help. Not everyone who is a prosecutor is a bum. That
is not true. And not every DA office is bad. Some of them are good.
But DOJ is the worst. They are worse than the most crooked big city
DA office. Talk to a professional defense attorney sometime. Every
one I know will tell you that the states are much more fair and
easier to deal with than the feds. The feds have a culture of
arrogance and abuse that is really unmatched.

You do have to have laws and courts and jails. And there is even
a place for federal crimes, although 90% of those laws need to go.
So you can't get rid of the DOJ. But you can fire everyone
associated with it. In an ideal world we would have months of
Congressional hearings doing nothing but raking DOJ over the coals
similar to the Church Commission. And at the end of it, every
lawyer who works in the criminal division would be fired and be
ashamed to put the experience on their resume.

Yes, treason, piracy on the high seas, and counterfeiting, those
are the only 3 federal crimes allowed by the Constitution. The UCMJ
would be allowed, since Congress is given the ability to set the
rules for the military.

Seems to me you could improve this problem by going after the
DEA rather than the DOJ. De-criminalize drugs, do away with the DEA
(and the ATF, and ICE, etc.) How can you control prosecutors when
they are charged with prosecuting everything because
everything is illegal?

Pretty sure it's a riffing on the roots "Anna" and
"(E)lisa(beth)". I know an "Annelies" (Dutch variant of the
same).

Yes, yes, I get your joke, btw. But it's better than what I saw
on the American women's Olympic gymnastics team: McKayla. No shit,
they took a Biblical name and made it a fake Scottish name, `a la
that stupid habit of naming girls with Gaelic surnames.

St. Paul's sister city, Minneapolis, is just as bad. This
morning, there was a woman sitting on the bench at my bus stop. As
I drew near, two pig cruisers pulled up, one pulled up onto the
sidewalk and the other blocked the west bound lane of 42nd Ave. She
was a little high maybe, but that's about it. They questioned her
with things like "What day is it? and What are your plans for
today?" She really was just sitting there minding her own business
causing no harm. My bus came and I suspect they took her downtown
for a tox-screening. But here's the thing, maybe one of the ship
pigs who posts here can tell me this - why do the fucking pigs (and
these fuckers like the majority of pigs in my city were fatter than
fuck) have to block a major street, forcing people into oncoming
traffic, in order to talk to a woman on a bus bench? Worse still,
when the cop first got out of their cars, one of them started to go
for his gun. Jesus fucking Christ, it's a fucking woman on a bench
smoking a cigarette. I even said very loudly, "Why are you going
for your gun" at which point he took his hand off of it,

Driving home from work yesterday there was a car pulled over
with the hazards on, and a couple milling about on the sidewalk. As
I drove by a police cruiser did a u-turn and pulled behind them
with his blues on.
They actually looked pleased to see him.
Looking in the mirror I saw that he didn't get out immediately, he
was on the radio.
Shaved head and Oakley sunglasses.

Stop running these kinds of stories. You'll just warp some
impressionable libertarian gun nut's mind and he (or she) will
start going postal on the fine LEOs and prosectuors who make these
kinds of mistakes. The last thing we need is some crazy Ragnarian
marksman taking out these dudes when they are walking out of, say,
a restaurant two years from now without a care in the world.

Yeah, that would be awful. Awful, I say.
That is, awful for the restaurant owner(s) as they would lose
business while 200 cops walk around aimlessly on the property
pretending to be part of the investigation.

Jesus Christ. I think that even if it were the right house and
the people were guilty as hell, they would deserve $30 million for
the way the cops behaved. How the fuck is it acceptable for them to
routinely ransack places when they have search warrants. The search
would probably be more effective too if they did it carefully and
methodically without breaking shit or making a mess. Assholes.

He has been convicted, in a state court, of a state charge.
(There is only one Roberto Franco listed in the Minnesota
Department of Corrections database, and he's there on a weapons
charge). It appears he was convicted of violating M.S.A.
624.713.1(2), which essentially is being in possession of a firearm
if previously convicted of a crime of violence. Minnesota defines
"crime of violence as follows: felony convictions of the following
offenses: murder; manslaughter; aiding suicide and aiding attempted
suicide; assault; crimes committed for the benefit of a gang; use
of drugs to injure or facilitate crime; simple robbery; aggravated
robbery; kidnapping; false imprisonment; prostitution; sex
trafficking; criminal sexual conduct; malicious punishment of a
child; neglect or endangerment of a child; commission of crime
while wearing or possessing a bullet-resistant vest; theft of a
firearm, theft of a motor vehicle, theft of property from a
burning, abandoned, or vacant building, or from an area of
destruction caused by civil disaster, riot, bombing, or the
proximity of battle, and theft of a controlled substance, an
explosive, or an incendiary device; arson; burglary; drive-by
shooting; unlawfully possessing a machine gun or short-barreled
shotgun; riot; terroristic threats; stalking; shooting at a public
transit vehicle or facility; and drugs, controlled substances; and
an attempt to commit any of these offenses.

Factual problem with the brief. If the girl was having a LOW
blood sugar incident, she didn't need medication. She needed food.
/pedant

But yeah, police powers these days are scary. Used to be that
maybe a few bad guys got away, there was a little corruption, and
most everybody else didn't have to worry about much. Now I feel
like it's mostly blind luck if you don't have a negative run in
with the police.

Any police office taking part in a wrong house raid needs to
have his sovereign immunity removed, he should be summarily
dismissed with no pension or benefits and his certificate revoked,
the next two levels of supervisor should go, and the judge that
signed the warrant shoud be impeached if the warrant specified the
wrong person/address.

The DEA should be the first department of the DOJ chopped. Since
the mandate for the DEA is to enforce the controlled substance act,
drugs, which are rampant in a "free" society like ours. The DEA has
massive leeway to do shit like this or
this.

I agree on the point about summary dismissal and revocation of
sovereign immunity, but the Judge who signed off on a faulty
warrant shouldn't be impeached, the Judge should have to commit
seppuku to atone for their colossal f*ckup. I'm not even sure any
of them would have to fall on a sword for the problem to correct
itself; the mere threat would be enough to make them veeeeeeery
careful about what they sign off on.

People only care about what they're personally affected by. If
it's not their house being illegally raided, their dog being shot
and their children being brutalized then they don't care.

If they did then marijuana would've been legally regulated like
wine many years ago. Keeping marijuana illegal doesn't achieve
anything as it doesn't stop people consuming marijuana. It does,
however, create massive harm in the form of 10,000 brutal murders
800,000 needless arrests every year, and a $40 Billion bill
to taxpayers each year.

These stupid thugs, first off should not be given all this power
to be breaking into anybody's house first of all. They should be
prosecuted to the fullest extent and put in prison right with the
people they threw in there over this stupid drug war!!!

The following is a legal definition called "Fruit of Poisonous
Tree Doctrine" which would disqualify any "tainted" evidence found
during the illegal search and it states that evidence obtained
illegally is not admissible in a court of law. The doctrine is
based on the rule that evidence obtained through illegal search or
illegal interrogation taints not only evidence obtained but also
facts discovered by the process. Although, this doctrine expressly
states that such evidence cannot be admitted as evidence against a
defendant, there are some exceptions to this doctrine. They
are:

1. when the evidence was partely discovered as a result of an
independent, untainted source;

2. when the evidence would inevitably been discovered despite
the tainted source;

3. the chain of causation between the illegal action and the
tainted evidence is too attenuated; or

4. the search warrant that was not based on probable cause was
executed by government agents in good faith.

The only one of these exceptions that could possibly provide a
legal loophole would, by the slimmest of margins, be # 4. I doubt
that anyone could argue that there was even a sliver of "good
faith" in an incorrect, poorly researched and completely
overzealous warrant being enacted to the point where children are
assaulted at gunpoint, their right to privacy violated, their right
to Liberty and the pursuit of happiness expunged, and their right
to innocence stripped away from them by jack-booted, black garbed
and masked, gun toting, violent and uncaring, automaton drones who
masquerade as "Peace Officers". "To Protect and Serve"....THE STATE
is about as close to "good faith" as it goes...but then again, they
will be tried BY the State so the chances of any sort of justice
for this unfortunate family are slim at best. Can anyone
say...COVER-UP? Poor Roberto will likely have his rights squashed
by the same State who sent in the SWAT gorillas in the first place.
Shame on the "Justice System" if this family is forced to watch
their role model being further brutalised by "The State" which is
supposed to "Protect Serve" them.

This is an outrageous and disturbing story. However, I went on
Google to find any kind of legitimate corroboration, i.e. local
news accounts, and was unable to find anything to back up this
story. Seems to me that such a monumental police screw up would
have at least made the local news. I'd love to see some kind of
corroboration on this.

This is an outrageous and disturbing story. However, I went on
Google to find any kind of legitimate corroboration, i.e. local
news accounts, and was unable to find anything to back up this
story. Seems to me that such a monumental police fuck up would have
at least made the local news. I'd love to see some kind of
corroboration on this.

shame on you shawn scovill you are a sick POS sick for
handcuffing children which is child abuse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sick
because you murdered their pet which is animal abuse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sick because you denied a child her diabetic medication!!!!!!!!!!!!
which is medical negligence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i hope you are
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and go to prison and
spend the rest of your natural life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! same for
your cohorts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyday, life seems to get more Orwellian as we are told "Evil
is Good, and Good is Evil." This case is disgusting; however, it is
now so commonplace, it hardly merits news, at least to the news
media. Something the story omits; however, reflects the criminality
of LOE's in this case is that Officer Scovill attempted to bribe
Fransisco "not to pursue civil redress." When will we ever learn,
that law enforcement should be handled by the people, not an
overbearing court system that is set to generate revenue as opposed
to dispense justice?

Dog being gunned down by law enforcement is rampant throught the
nation. It happened recently here, just three hrs from St. Paul.
You can read about it on the Justice for Rugar page on facebook or
view the videos on YouTube - Rugar's Story Part I, and Rugar's
Story Part II.

p.s. And Rugar's story wasn't reported in his own community.
What kind of hold does the sheriff's office have over media anyway?
What a disgrace. And Sheriff Litman not only stands by his deputy
but is trying to turn the blame back onto the family. wtf?
Seriously, watch the videos.

I STRONGLY agree with you. As humans we can not tolerate this in
any way. They are worst then terrorist because they took an oath to
"Protect and Serve" and on that day someone purposelessly choose
not.

I Strongly hope that all officers involved die in the most
painful way possible for what they did to innocent people, and to
kill the dog and FORCE the minors to sit next to it's body leaves
me sick to the very pit of my stomach. Everything about what they
did is very F'ed a billion eternity's in HELL would not be enough
for these people. I'm going to pray every night for the rest of my
life that they personally get what's coming to them (not just
suspend them with or without pay but JAIL for a long time). I do
NOT care about officers who break the law to get a warrant then go
to the completely wrong place. I hope with all that's good in our
world that they all get put to death for the lives that they ruined
the scars that will follow the victims forever.